The Impact of the Political Interference on Prosecuting International Crimes: An Experience from the International Crimes Tribunal Bangladesh

Maruf Billah, Fuad Mahbub, Tan Birun Nisa

Abstract

This study examines how political interference in the operation of the International Crimes Tribunal Bangladesh (ICTB), a tribunal intended to prosecute and punish international crimes committed in the Bangladesh War of Liberation in 1971, negatively influences securing criminal justice for the parties. In the Bangladesh Liberation War, heinous crimes were perpetrated by the Pakistani army officers with Pakistani political leaders, Pakistani paramilitary forces, Bengali freedom fighters, Bengali civilians, whether pro- or anti-Pakistan, and non-Bengali civilians, i.e., Biharis. However, the recent ICTB has started to prosecute only the members of Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI). They were allegedly abettors and collaborators of the Pakistani army as civilians, which indicates that an issue of political biases of the ICTB in prosecuting the opposition leaders is obvious. Hence, this study is divided into four major sections while applying the qualitative approach to reach the outcome. The first part scrutinizes the importance of a political regime’s neutrality in operating a tribunal intended to prosecute and punish international crimes under a political setting. The second section critically finds out that the current Bangladeshi government is controlling the recent ICTB to suppress the JEI in the political sphere of Bangladesh. The third section analyzes the consequences of political interference in a criminal tribunal, which diminishes a tribunal’s legal credibility and competency. As the novelty of the study, the last section forwards a way to be implemented by the ICTB to enhance the legal credibility and competency of the Tribunal in securing criminal justice.

 

Keywords: political interference, prosecution of international crimes, the neutrality of political regime.


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References


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